The Hearts Vote

[surreydee]

Part of me thinks the 3 x 14 club set up could work quite well although maybe too many dead rubbers after the split.

[Barfly]

1 hour ago, Double Blue said:

 

Re Ann Budge's comment re clubs should not be penalised, what has she included in her proposals that means Dundee and Ayr ate not penalised in their quest to be in the top league via the play offs.

 

 

And you could also argue the case for Dunfermline, Arbroath and Morton, all of whom were in the race for play-off places. Similarly in Leagues One and Two. 

[chomp my root]

9 minutes ago, surreydee said:

Part of me thinks the 3 x 14 club set up could work quite well although maybe too many dead rubbers after the split.

I was 'content' with this arrangement to save any team from relegation. It does leave Kelty and Brora seen off but I would guess a wedge of cash might placate them. Saying that.... with a lot of teams now saying they aren't likely to be able to play with no fans, it might need to be more carefully managed and its possible the likes of Kelty and Brora to 'come up' if they're willing to play behind closed doors. 

This does seem to have turned into a bit of a mess, at least from the outside looking in. Guess the old Zoom will be getting hammered...... 

[Irene Marot]

I don't see how they can split after 26 games, a bad winter and they are snookered. 

[Barfly]

39 minutes ago, surreydee said:

Part of me thinks the 3 x 14 club set up could work quite well although maybe too many dead rubbers after the split.

I'm not in favour of the proposed 6/8 split if it means 26 + 14 games for the lower group. Teams at the top end of that group could and probably will be well clear of the threat of relegation long before the season end and therefore, as you say, face a prolonged run of relatively meaningless games. No thanks.

[BCram]

11 minutes ago, Barfly said:

I'm not in favour of the proposed 6/8 split if it means 26 + 14 games for the lower group. Teams at the top end of that group could and probably will be well clear of the threat of relegation long before the season end and therefore, as you say, face a prolonged run of relatively meaningless games. No thanks.

Surely there could be some incentive that related solely to the games after the split. Why not set  all the points back to zero and make the final payout and Championship decision based on the post split games. American football does this to an extent. It would need to be clear what would happen if covid flares up again. 

We need to be working on a plan to get 4000 ST holders sitting in Dens, even if it means no away support.

[Cobra]

I wonder if Nelms is working on a temporary top 16 plan to ensure some of Scotland's more prominent clubs are assured of playing football post-pandemic.

A top 16 with a split means 3-5 Old Firm games instead of 4-6. I'm sure Rangers, Celtic and Sky could live with that for a season.

I don't know how anyone could reasonably reject such a plan given the circumstances, and surely Nelms could use his leverage with the SPFL to get them onboard.

[Prince Buster]

3 minutes ago, BCram said:

Surely there could be some incentive that related solely to the games after the split. Why not set  all the points back to zero and make the final payout and Championship decision based on the post split games. American football does this to an extent. It would need to be clear what would happen if covid flares up again. 

We need to be working on a plan to get 4000 ST holders sitting in Dens, even if it means no away support.

Can you imagine being ten points clear in eighth place, league splits, your points are reset to zero then you're told you're getting another three games at home all of which are against the bottom three sides. You then have to face the ninth, tenth and eleventh placed sides at their middens? Then imagine going on a slump where that ten point cushion would have been useful but ending up relegated. Uproar.

[BCram]

9 minutes ago, Prince Buster said:

Can you imagine being ten points clear in eighth place, league splits, your points are reset to zero then you're told you're getting another three games at home all of which are against the bottom three sides. You then have to face the ninth, tenth and eleventh placed sides at their middens? Then imagine going on a slump where that ten point cushion would have been useful but ending up relegated. Uproar.

You spotted it. I was trying to generate some passionate support for the post split games. Ok don't put everyone down to zero. Put them in order so that they have an advantage but not one so great that they would need to lose all the playoff games to lose the top place.

It might be one way to end 35 years of the OF ruling.

Edited 29 May 2020 by BCram
Additional inflammatory comment

[Barfly]

1 hour ago, Cobra said:

I wonder if Nelms is working on a temporary top 16 plan to ensure some of Scotland's more prominent clubs are assured of playing football post-pandemic.

A top 16 with a split means 3-5 Old Firm games instead of 4-6. I'm sure Rangers, Celtic and Sky could live with that for a season.

I don't know how anyone could reasonably reject such a plan given the circumstances, and surely Nelms could use his leverage with the SPFL to get them onboard.

I think it would be outrageous, scandalous, to exclude any club that wants to participate in league football next season simply because the SPFL may prefer to limit the numbers.  

I think we're fast approaching the stage where we need clubs to declare whether they are in or out. When the numbers are known the clubs can squabble over the best structure to take things forward. If Dundee want to be involved then so they should be.

[harry94]

2 hours ago, Cobra said:

I wonder if Nelms is working on a temporary top 16 plan to ensure some of Scotland's more prominent clubs are assured of playing football post-pandemic.

A top 16 with a split means 3-5 Old Firm games instead of 4-6. I'm sure Rangers, Celtic and Sky could live with that for a season.

I don't know how anyone could reasonably reject such a plan given the circumstances, and surely Nelms could use his leverage with the SPFL to get them onboard.

In fairness to the top flight teams, it's quite tough financially to see the financial distribution change. Football money is based on a power law type relationship where you have bigger gaps as you move up the league. Since teams budget for 2-3 years, it is really a dramatic change to absorb over night.

Add 4 Championship teams in and up the prize pot accordingly. Say Celtic are nice enough to sacrifice 25% of their income and the 16th pot is set somewhere between our Championship football and top flight to compromise. From some very rushed calculations (and maths I've not used in a long time), a team like Aberdeen are now losing an additional £500k and every current top flight team is losing at least in the region of £300k + more. If you were a current top flight side and then got dragged into the relegation zone with a team who maybe have heavy benefactor power (i.e. ourselves), you could be facing financial ruin in the second season heading down a division if you've got a lot of playing staff signed up on those terms.

You can always tweak things but more money towards the top flight pot then hurts teams down the set-up who would also be reeling from a couple of bigger away gates leaving, this is before we even consider implications of the change in structure impact on no of games + size of gates (which could be mitigated against in some way like you indicate - although so many express apathy re repetition and a lot of the league would still be living with that).

I think if we're pushing past that 10-14 mark of teams, it's really got to be something that comes with enough time for it to be budgeted for. In all honesty, I'm personally skeptical of a lot of the reasons given in support but if a decent compromise of 14 could be made that didn't have a clock attached to it (which frees all the relegation threatened sides now but threatens us in a couple of seasons), I think it could be a good way of testing what the appetite is. As a country of 5 million, we're definitely not alone in gravitating towards the smaller leagues with a bit of experimenting, I think the comparisons re the English league on our doorstep are really unhelpful tbh.

[Edin_Dee]

8 hours ago, HK Blues said:

Agree with most of this but not the latter part - the season was not over and they were only 4 points adrift.  And, had they not lost to St Mirren in that last game they would possibly have been sitting 11th rather than 12th.  They were unlucky that they were sitting in the wrong seat when the music stopped.  

Always a chance that they would have stayed up but history suggests the clubs sitting bottom at that stage in the season normally goes down (unless Dundee are the team sitting above the bottom club like last season). They were adrift at the bottom for footballing reasons and the fact they got beat by St Mirren in a crucial game gave all the signs that they would have continued to struggle in final few games. 

Hearts are saying no club should be worse off because of coronavirus but that is impossible unfortunately. Even if league reconstruction happens Dundee, Ayr and a few lower league clubs will have suffered more than other